The Tale of Benjamin Newcastle

Summary: Benjamin Newcastle struggles his way through college just like everyone else, until he begins to see mythical creatures around every corner.

The Tale of Benjamin Newcastle

“Have
you seen that new dragon movie?” Rob asked.

Ben
snorted. “Do you really think I have time to go see a stupid movie about fake
creatures? I’ve got two papers, a group project, and a history exam tomorrow.”

“Alright,
alright,” Rob replied, throwing his hands up in surrender. “You win; your
schedule is busier than mine! But you should see it if you get the chance. It’s
really good, great CGI. I swear the dragons looked real!”

“Dragons
aren’t real,” Ben snapped, hitching his backpack further up on his shoulder and
picking up his pace. It was actually a very nice, sunny spring day and lots of
students were taking advantage of it. They stumbled out of their classrooms and
dormitories, blinking up at the sun with confusion, like sunlight was a new,
mind-boggling concept. Then they dashed back inside and reemerged with a
blanket and their laptops to “study”.

Ben
didn’t have time to sit outside socializing, though. He hastened down the black
paved pathways between academic buildings, headed for the college library. He’d
work on the Psychology paper first and get that out of the way. Then he could
tackle the Chemistry paper before meeting with his teammates for the group
English project, and rounding up the night with a few hours of studying for
that History exam. They only had to know up through the American Civil War,
right?

“Hey,
Ben!” Ben’s gray eyes snapped back to Rob. He’d forgotten all about his friend
walking along with him.

“What?”

“Take
it easy with the studying, huh? You know, you’re supposed to enjoy college.”

“You’re
also supposed to get good grades so you can get a job when you graduate,” Ben
retorted. He paused at the edge of Bridge Street and checked that the crosswalk
was clear. He was just about to take a step out into the empty road when
something flew right into his face.

“Whoa!”
Ben stumbled back, his hand swiping what must’ve been a kamikaze cicada from
his forehead.

“You
alright?” Rob asked.

“Yeah.”
Ben searched the ground for whatever bug had hit him, but his eyes came to rest
on a tiny green body with dragonfly wings, lying spread-eagle on the pavement.
“No!” he screeched, throwing himself backwards and into Rob. The two collapsed
into a jumble of body parts, textbooks, and backpacks.

Ben’s
head sprung up, looking all around him to see if anyone else was watching. Then
he knelt down and scooped up the little green body, shoving it in his
sweatshirt pocket.

“Nothing,”
he told Rob. “I was just, startled. Dropped my pencil.”

“Your
pencil…?”

“Yeah.
I’m going back to my dorm. I forgot a textbook. I’ll meet you for dinner
later.”

Rob
didn’t look convinced, but Ben didn’t care. The bulge in his sweatshirt pocket
felt so obvious, like he had something the size of a Boston terrier stuffed
into his sweatshirt instead of something that was barely larger than a smart
phone. He turned his back to Rob and took the longer way back to Wilson Hall,
just so Rob wouldn’t be able to see his pocket. Ben didn’t want to think about
what was in there, but it was all that his mind could focus on. He just kept
thinking over and over again ‘Not again.
Not here. Please not again.’ It felt like everyone was watching him as he
hurried across campus towards his freshman dormitory. That guy sitting over in
the blue lawn chair was definitely staring at him. And those girls out in their
swimsuits were whispering and pointing at his pocket. Ben pulled the hood of
his sweatshirt up over his black hair and picked up his pace. He hunched over
like his backpack was stuffed full of heavy textbooks, but really he was just
trying to cover up his pocket. Why did he have to live in the freshman dorm
that was farthest from the academic cluster?

Finally
Ben made it to his door. He fumbled with his key for a moment before he was
able to at last shove it into the lock and duck into the safety of his room. He
didn’t have a roommate. The one he had been assigned had never gone to class
all during the fall semester before dropping out at the start of spring. The
college just never gave him a new roommate. Only half of the room was
decorated, Ben’s half. The other half was just white cinder block walls with a
bare mattress and an empty desk. Ben never felt comfortable using that half of
the room, in case one day the people in charge of housing just assigned someone
else to his room.

Now,
Ben threw his bag and books on his own bed before unzipping his sweatshirt and
setting the whole thing on the opposite, empty bed. His eyes never left the
small bulge in the left pocket of the sweatshirt. It was still there. He’d
hoped that maybe it would go away on the walk back, but Ben’s luck was not so
great.

“Okay,
Ben, you can do this,” he murmured. “Just, open the pocket and let it fall out.
Maybe it really is just a cicada.” ‘But
it’s too early in the season for cicadas. It’s just March.’

Ben
took a deep breath and reached out for the sweatshirt. He found the left pocket
and tipped it on its side. The little green body fell out onto the bed.

‘Tree sprite,’
Ben’s mind told him. The little green figure was the color of an oak leaf,
though a bit faded, like it was washed out. It lay in a little heap, legs no
longer than a matchstick, its head about the size of a dime, maybe smaller. Its
eyes were closed, but Ben knew they would be black. That’s what all the other
ones had. Black eyes, no matter what color their skin was. Golden yellow, dark
red, earthy brown, it didn’t matter.

“Oh,
this can’t be happening,” Ben groaned, sitting back on his bed, hanging his
head in his hands. He thought he had a handle on this problem. That’s what the
therapist had been for. Dr. Becker, the fat old shrink with a baldhead and
thick glasses, who always sweated a lot during their sessions and asked stupid
questions.

“Do
you think you really see these unicorns?”

“Yes!
I don’t just ‘think I see’ them, I actually do
see them. And I can feel them too!” Their white coats were always so soft and
warm; Ben loved to rub his cheek into their necks. They didn’t smell like
horses. They didn’t stand in stalls all day and walk around in their own feces.
They smelled like grass and distant rain. Their horns, ivory like an elephant’s
tusks, were sharp, but they were always very careful with them. Ben had never
been cut even once, though he’d been meeting the unicorns in the park behind
his house since he was five.

It
looked like it was dead. The tiny chest wasn’t rising or falling. Its mouth
hung open revealing a row of little, razor sharp teeth. ‘Sprite bites hurt,’
Ben mused. “No! Stop! You’re not doing this again!”

Ben
scooped up the dead tree sprite and moved across the room to the one window. He
threw it open and tossed the body of the sprite outside. It smashed into the
branches of a nearby tree and Ben’s eyes followed every rustle as it hit more
branches and leaves on the fall down. He decided he didn’t really hear the
small thump the body made as it hit the tree roots, that it was just a nut or
something, falling off the tree itself.

Ben
woke suddenly during the night when he thought he heard something clattering
against his window. He stared at the ceiling for a moment, trying to figure out
if he’d imagined it or if there really had been something. Outside the wind
blew heavily. Sometimes the nearby tree’s branches would blow against the
building and hit the windowpane, if the wind blew strongly enough and in the
proper direction. But that wasn’t what he heard. The branches made a soft
clattering sound. This was a very loud, very sharp thwack, like someone was throwing rocks at his window. Maybe Rob
was down below. What time was it anyways? Ben strained his neck up to look at
his digital alarm clock on the dresser. 4:16 AM. Ben was going to kill Rob.

He
threw off his comforter and trudged over to the window, throwing it open
without considering the strong wind. A cold blast smacked him across the face
and blew his history notes across the room.

Ben
froze as he heard the deep, gravelly voice. It reminded him of loose stone
driveways, crumbling under tires. Ben almost didn’t want to turn around, but he
did, very slowly. Squatting in the window, staring at him through the night
with glowing yellow eyes, was a gargoyle. It sat back on its haunches, wings
folded, two front claws scratching the fake wood of Ben’s desk. Long, stone
fangs protruded from its wolf-like snout. Two, short curved horns created a
demonic silhouette in the light from the parking lot down below.

“I’m
sorry?” Ben hesitated. He really didn’t fancy getting bitten by those fangs or
speared with those horns for upsetting the gargoyle.

The
gargoyle shifted forward onto its front legs and stepped over Ben’s computer
before leaping down to the linoleum floor. “Fine. My name is Grigore.” His
claws clacked against the bare floor as he paced back and forth in front of
Ben.

“Grigore,”
Ben repeated. “N-Nice to meet you.”

The
gargoyle paused to nod. “Well met, Starry-eyed.”

“What?”

“Starry-eyed.
Surely others have called you such.”

Ben
shook his head. “No, I haven’t seen any of you in…years.”

The
gargoyle sniffed. “Well, I only require a small favor from you tonight,
Starry-eyed.”

“What?”

“It
seems I have accumulated some moss under my wings during the cold period. It is
perplexing, and acutely uncomfortable.”

“Oh,
you want me to remove it?”

“Yes.”

“O-okay,
um, let me see.”

The
gargoyle paused and extended his bat-like wings. The claw at the end of the
left wing pierced the side of the bare mattress, but Grigore didn’t seem to
notice. Ben bent down to look under the wing and found a small collection of
moss just under the wing joint. He reached in and started to pick the moss
loose, letting it fall in little dark green clumps on the floor. Once the right
wing was done, he did the same for the left.

“Ah,
thank you, Starry-eyed. That is much better.” Grigore pumped his wings
experimentally a few times, scattering Ben’s papers again.

“No
problem,” Ben replied.

“Good
night, Starry-eyed. Sleep safely. I am guarding you.”

“Uh,
thanks.”

Ben
hardly slept again that night. He kept his eyes clenched shut, trying not to
think about the gargoyle that sat on the roof just over his third floor window.
Every so often he’d hear scraping as the gargoyle presumably shifted position.
When morning came, Ben threw open the window again and stuck his head out,
straining to see onto the roof. But he couldn’t see anything. The gargoyle
could still be there, but Ben wouldn’t be able to see it.

By
the time Ben stepped out of Wilson Hall on his way to class, he’d convinced
himself that he really had imagined the gargoyle. There were no scratches on
the desk where the gargoyle had dug his claws in upon first entering Ben’s
room, and the moss that he’d picked off Grigore’s wings was no longer scattered
on his floor. But then he walked under one of the oak trees that lined the
pathway from Wilson Hall to the student union building and an acorn knocked him
on the head.

“Oh,
excuse me, Starry-eyed, I did not see you there.” Ben looked over at the tree
and blinked a few times at the long, wooden face of a man, sticking out of the
bark.

“What?”

“My
apologies, I did not mean to drop an acorn on your head,” the green man rasped,
like wind shuddering through leaves.

“Sure.
You too.” The face of the green man faded back into his tree and Ben exhaled a
huge sigh.

“Oh,
what’s going on?” He turned back to
the path and began walking towards the cafeteria and breakfast. ‘Maybe I just have low blood sugar. That was
one of the possible explanations, right?’

Ben
stared down at the macadam as he walked, not daring to look up. He might see
something else. As a result, he almost crashed into a woman in a wheelchair as
she pushed herself down the sidewalk.

“Oh,
sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“That’s
perfectly alright, Starry-eyed. Could you direct me to the nearest body of salt
water?” the woman asked, smiling up at him with rows of slightly pointed teeth,
pushing back her long, wet blonde hair. Ben looked down at her lap and saw, not
two sets of legs, but one green and blue tail that ended in a fin, resting
where two feet should have been.

“Gah,
sorry! I have to go!” Ben sprinted out into the street and jumped as a car horn
sounded and something hit him from the side. He was thrown, landing heavily in
the street, skinning his hands and elbow. The man driving the car leapt out of
the driver side, rushing around to Ben.

“Starry-eyed,
are you alright?” he lisped through two white fangs. Ben looked up into bright
red eyes on a pale face and screamed.

“Yes!
Go, just go!”

The
vampire looked down at him confused. “Are you sure you are okay, Starry-eyed? I
smell blood on you.”

Ben
pulled his arms behind his back, out of the vampire’s sight, not that it would
do any good. “Yes, I’m fine. Just a scra—uh, I mean, it’s nothing. No blood.
I’m fine.” He turned and ran the rest of the way across the street and into the
student union building. Once inside, his hands and elbows finally started
burning. Ben shouldered open the men’s room door and stepped up to one of the
grimy sinks to tend to his injuries. His hands weren’t too bad, with just a
little bit of blood welling up in a few cuts. Mostly they were dirty, so he
washed them and dabbed at the raw areas. His elbow, though, was beginning to
drip blood. Ben wet a towel and tried to get the few pieces of road grit out of
the wound before clamping another paper towel over it. Maybe the help desk up
front would have a first aid kit.

Ben
disposed of the bloody towels and turned towards the door, about to leave, when
it opened and in walked a young man with pale green skin and auburn hair. Two
tapered ears stuck out from under his hair. ‘Wood
elf.’

“Starry-eyed,
I saw what occurred on the street. I understand why you did not want the
vampire to tend to your wounds, but I must insist you let me help you.” The
wood elf produced a roll of gauze and medical tape.

“Okay?”

Ben
sat on the edge of one of the sinks while the wood elf, who introduced himself
as Florian, wrapped the gauze around his elbow and tapped it carefully. He
offered to do the same for Ben’s hands, but Ben assured him they were fine.

“Thanks,
but I have to go,” he told Florian.

“Farewell,
Starry-eyed.”

Ben
left the men’s room and caught a glimpse of the clock over the help desk. He
was almost late for his history exam! He dashed for the exit, hissing as he
slammed his injured hands into the bar and shoved the door open. A girl who had
just been reaching for the door on the other side leapt back.

“Hey!
Watch it!”

“Sorry,”
Ben shouted over his shoulder, leaping down the small set of stairs, onto the
sidewalk. He checked for cars this time before running out into the street,
heading for Nighy Hall, the Humanities building. As he rounded Beringer Hall,
the science complex, Ben had to duck out of the way of a very large eagle that
almost took his head off. A heavy paw cuffed him in the back of his head. Ben
looked back to catch a glimpse of a lion’s tail and back end, attached to the
front of an over-sized eagle. ‘A
gryphon.’ The gryphon’s eagle head looked back over its shoulders,
screeching down at him before it disappeared around the observatory.

“Oh, this is not good,” Ben groaned,
feeling a bit sick. Maybe it was the blood loss. Yes, that was it. He’d lost
too much blood when he got hit by that car. Or maybe he’d hit his head.

“Ben.”

“What!”
Ben shouted, leaping away from the hand that tapped him on the shoulder. Rob’s
smile fell as he took in Ben’s haggard appearance. “Are you alright?”

“Fine!
I’m fine,” Ben assured him, though his eyes never stopped darting around the
academic cluster. There was a nymph, made entirely of cherry blossom petals
caught in the wind, giggling and playfully chasing what looked like a satyr
underneath a tree in the middle of the cluster. A little distance away, near
the language building MacKenna, a young woman dressed in a grey dress sat
combing her long blonde hair and talking to a short little man dressed in green
with a thick tuft of orange hair. ‘Banshee,
leprechaun.’

“Ben?
Ben!”

“Huh?”

“How
much sleep did you get last night?”

Ben
turned back to Rob, shaking his head. “Not much.”

“You
didn’t seriously study for your exam all night, did you? I told you that that
doesn’t actually work. It just makes you more tired so you can’t concentrate.”

“I’m
fine, Rob,” Ben insisted. His eyes tracked a gray wolf that trotted up the
stairs of Beringer, only to turn into a boy from Ben’s Chemistry class as it
got to the doors. ‘Loup-garou.’

“You’re
acting really weird, Ben. Did you drink coffee again?”

“No,
I’m just tired.” He looked up as a shadow fell over them. A red and orange bird
soared overhead, trailing a train of rippling flames. ‘Phoenix.’

“You
should go and sleep. You’ll flunk the exam this way. Professor Nolan will
understand.”

“I’m
alright, really. I can’t miss this exam; Nolan will give me a zero. Nobody can
miss it without a doctor’s note.”

Rob
opened his mouth to insist, but Ben didn’t stick around long enough to hear it.
He pushed past him, once more heading for Nighy Hall. Rob jogged to catch up
with him.

“Alright,
but you’ll go right to bed afterwards, right?”

Ben
flinched, directing his gaze away from a large black dog, as tall as a horse,
who sat panting by the entrance of Nighy. Its blood-red eyes followed him as he
climbed the steps up to the door. Rob pulled the door open for him and Ben
stepped inside Nighy Hall, leaving all the creatures behind. He breathed a huge
sigh of relief at the sight of a long hallway of wooden doors and his fellow
students, milling around outside the classrooms, talking and doing some last
minute studying. Ben came to room 106 and set one foot in the open door when
Rob grabbed his arm. He jumped as his heart flew up into his throat.

“Geez,
calm down,” Rob told him. “You’re really skittish. I just wanted to tell you
that you better not be in Psych this afternoon. Go back and collapse. And no
doing any work.”

“Alright,”
Ben rasped.

“Alright,”
Rob nodded. “Good luck. You’ll be fine.”

Ben
gave him a weary smile. “Thanks.” He turned and stepped into the room, wiping
his shaking hands on his pants and then wincing when his nerves reminded him of
the damage to his palms. He collapsed into the desk he normally sat at in the
second row and just stared at the blank chalkboard.

“Alright,
Benjamin, get a grip,” he whispered to himself. “You’ve got a test to take,
then you can go and sleep and everything will be fine.” ‘But just in case, maybe put some cinnamon down over the window and door.
That should keep out the pixies.’ Benjamin groaned at the mutinous thought.

“Are
you feeling alright, Benjamin?” Professor Nolan asked as she walked in the
door, carrying a tall stack of tests in her arms.

“Yeah,”
Ben groaned, rubbing his eyes. “I’m just tired.”

Ben
forced himself to sit upright and take out his pen as Professor Nolan brought
the class to attention. She started explaining her expectations for the exam,
but Ben couldn’t focus. He kept hearing a heavy, rhythmic beat, like a
heartbeat but much too slow. It pressed in on his ears, thumping against the
inside of his skull. Ben clamped his hands over his ears, but it didn’t make it
any better. The beating was getting louder, closer.

“Benjamin?”
Professor Nolan was barely audible over the pounding.

“I’m
fine,” Ben whimpered, sinking down into his chair like it could offer some
protection from the long, steady pulsing. How had the windows not shattered
with the pressure? How did nobody else notice it? Surely they heard something!

The
beating abruptly cut off as a loud keening split Ben’s head in two, accompanied
by a crash that rattled his body, like the classroom was being bombed. But
Professor Nolan and the rest of the class simply stared at him with perplexed
expressions, uncomprehending.

Ben’s
head whipped around to the wall of windows as a loud roar echoed through the
classroom. A huge, orange eye peered into the windows, ringed by a scaly, royal
blue hide.

“Starry-eyed.”
The deep voice of the dragon vibrated in Ben’s chest, punching his lungs and
making his heart race. “Come! Help me defeat my enemy. He seeks my territory!”

“No!” Ben screeched, falling out of his
desk.

“Benjamin!
What’s wrong?” Professor Nolan asked, looking distressed.

“I
can’t go with you. I have a history exam.”

“Nonsense!
This is much more important. I must defeat this usurper. I require your aid,
Starry-eyed.”

“I
can’t!”

“Benjamin!”

“If
you do not agree to come with me, I shall have to force you.”

Ben
shook his head violently. “Please, just leave me alone!”

“Benjamin,
who are you talking to?”

The
dragon outside growled angrily. He rose up to his full height and, with a
powerful swing of his spiked tail, crushed the windows and sent shards of glass
raining down on Ben and the rest of the class. Ben curled up into a ball, but
he felt the glass shards pierce his exposed arms and cut through his t-shirt.

“No,
please! I can’t!”

“Emily,
go call Public Safety.”

“You
will come with me, Starry-eyed!” the dragon thundered.

“I can’t go with
you!” Benjamin cried, cradling his knees in his bloodied arms, his back
shoved against the wall.

“Very
well. Then I shall smite you, Starry-eyed. You are unworthy.” The dragon reared
back its head and opened its gaping maw. Ben smelled brimstone, just before the
dragon blew a fiery stream through the broken windows at him. Ben shrieked as
the flames engulfed him, turning his clothes to ash and melting the skin from
his body. He tried to writhe away from the hellfire but no place was safe. All
he could do was curl in on himself, beyond cries.

“Benjamin.
Benjamin Newcastle!”

Ben
looked up at the concerned Public Safety officer who now stood crouched over
him. His skin felt feverish, but he still wore his t-shirt and jeans and Ben
looked over to find the windows still intact, the sun shining through the slats
in the blinds.

“Let
me help you,” the officer told him. He took Ben’s upper arm and pulled him off
the floor. Ben looked down, confused. He wasn’t even slightly singed. The
little hairs on his arms stood at attention, all there.

“I—I
don’t understand,” Ben stammered.

“I
think, for your own safety and the safety of your classmates and professor, you
should come with me.”

Write a Review
Did you enjoy my story? Please let me know what you think by leaving a review! Thanks,
KT Heacock

Bookworm00:
This was a great story! I didn't like how the author has Derek give his point of view and then repeats everything all over again in Gwen's point of view. Overall, I do like the characters and the plot.

N_F_G:
This story was fantastic! It was really enjoyable, and the characters and locations felt real to me as I read the story! Celeste was an amazing character, who survived all her struggles, and I felt the author did an excellent job writing about suicide and self harm- in a sensitive, authentic mann...

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